The vehicle (e.g., cars, trucks, planes, boats, motorcycles, autonomous vehicles, robots, forklift trucks etc.) is an integral part of the modern economy. Unfortunately, fossil fuels, like oil which is typically used to power such vehicles, have numerous drawbacks including: a dependence on limited foreign sources of fossil fuels; these foreign sources are often in volatile geographic locations; and such fuels produce pollution and climate change. One way to address these problems is to increase the fuel economy of these vehicles. Recently, gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles have been introduced, which consume substantially less fuel than their traditional internal combustion counterparts, i.e., they have better fuel economy. However, gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles do not eliminate the need for fossil fuels, as they still require an internal combustion engine in addition to the electric motor.
Another way to address this problem is to use renewable resource fuels such as bio-fuels. Bio-fuels, however, are currently expensive and years away from widespread commercial use.
Yet another way to address these problems is to use clean technologies, such as electric motors powered by fuel cells or batteries. However, many of these clean technologies are not yet practical. For example, fuel cell vehicles are still under development and are expensive. Batteries are costly and may add as much as 40% to the cost of a vehicle. Similarly, rechargeable battery technology has not advanced to the point where mass-produced and cost effective batteries can power electric vehicles for long distances. Present battery technology does not provide an energy density comparable to gasoline. Therefore, even on a typical fully charged electric vehicle battery, the electric vehicle may only be able to travel about 40 miles before needing to be recharged, i.e., for a given vehicle storage, the electric vehicles travel range is limited. Furthermore, batteries can take many hours to recharge. For example, batteries may need to be recharged overnight. As the charging time of a typical electric vehicle battery can last numerous hours and recharging may not be an option on a long journey, a viable “quick refuel” system and method for battery powered electric vehicles would be highly desirable.